


let sleeping beasts lie (in wait)

by vois



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Hallucinations, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Somnophilia, implications of the following:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 09:33:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20468837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vois/pseuds/vois
Summary: he imagines that he might like to be gentle with byleth, in another time, another place, another bed - a bed that is not made solely of dirt and stone and leaves.but dimitri is a beast, and beasts do not dream.





	let sleeping beasts lie (in wait)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [viiaitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/viiaitch/gifts).

Oh, my dear Professor.

My brilliant, beautiful Professor.

How could a beast like me ever…

-d-

Beasts do not dream.

Beasts do not dream, so Dimitri does not dream either. He does not dream so much as remember, vividly, the failures of his past, the deaths of all his forebears. He does not dream so much as bear witness again, and again, as his father is struck down, as his people shriek and disappear, as dear Professor's mouth goes slack - a perfect little curve to their lips even now, as they call something that Dimitri cannot hear and will never know.

Kneeling before Professor dearest, he wonders if perhaps he is not -

It is an impossibility. He is a beast and beasts do not dream, so dearest Professor must be… dearest Professor is…

They are solid, under Dimitri's hands, solid in a way that his ghosts have never been. The armor falls away but the flesh does not give. Dimitri wants to hold them like a precious and delicate thing, but does not dare to presume such a right. He presses his fingers deeper into sweet Professor's smooth and unblemished skin.

The next time he sees dearest Professor, the next time the cloth and armor falls away, there are bruises in the shape of his fingertips and he is -

_ relieved, relieved, relieved _

\- pleased, of course, like an animal marking its territory. Of course he is. He is no tender prince to wax poetic and press gentle kisses to the object of his affections. He is no longer man enough to possess affections at all. But even dogs have sense enough to howl and declare just where their boundaries lie.

Were Dimitri still human, he might dream, though. He imagines that he could dream of courting dear Professor properly, with all the letters and longing and propriety it entailed.

But he is not.

He is not, so he descends like a nightmare, like the black horse that Death rides in upon, and leaves bruises and bruises and _ bites _. Professor dearest takes it wordlessly but not soundlessly, takes it and gives in return only the slightest gasps and whines. Even if Byleth said anything, Dimitri would not be able to hear it. Not over the roar of blood in his ears. Not over the relentless echo of his breath that, trapped between their two bodies, seems to grow like an avalanche.

Red does not show easily on his gloves, but white does. Dimitri whines like a wounded dog at the sight, and peels the cloth away like a human skin. Beasts have no need for facades. Again, truer this time. Again.

“Are you dreaming, Professor,” Dimitri dares to ask once he has finished, once he has wrung all the pleasure from himself and lays there broken and exhausted as if he had slaughtered an army himself. He dares to ask but it is for nothing, for as ever Byleth is silent. 

Dimitri sees it again, that night. Of course he does. Professor’s soft mouth forming a perfect little ‘o’ of shock as he turns. This time there is sound, and he can hear a roaring in his ears and a landslide in the distance, but he still cannot hear the words that fall from Professor dearest’s red, red mouth.

He tells himself it's fine. A beast like him doesn't deserve to be the one entrusted with beloved Professor's last words.

...but he dreams, all the same, that it might have been his name.

-r-

Beasts do not eat. They only devour, wholesale, tearing at flesh with their teeth. 

It's only a hallucination, Dimitri knows. That's why. That's why it's alright.

He is starving. He has been starving from some time now. He sinks his teeth into the meat, sinks to a low unknown even to animals - but, no, if he is no longer human, then this is no longer such a heinous crime. The face is crushed beyond recognition, but that imperial bitch still sneers up at him, and he tears a strip of flesh away just to _ spit _ \- 

Darling Professor jerks under him, and whines.

It is only a hallucination. If it was dearest Professor, if it was truly dearest Professor, then they would call Dimitri's name. They would call Dimitri's name, even now that Dimitri is dead and all that remains is a corpse possessed by vengeance, an undead beast adorned in furs and skins like some grotesque kin-killing th…

Ah.

His hallucinations, they are growing more vivid.

The way sweet Professor quivers under him as he licks the blood from their neck… If he could taste, he might even taste that thick, cloying fear.

Oh, if only he could taste. If only a taste, it might even be enough to sate the ravenous, rumbling abyss. If only. If only.

Dimitri wakes with the taste of blood in his throat. Behind him, sweet Professor murmurs something, and absently pets the skin above his still-beating heart.

Dimitri rolls over - _ good dog _, he hears her sneer - and buries his face in Byleth’s hair, inhaling deeply. It is as dark and pristine as the night, but still he - still, he can - 

Professor dearest used to smell of the sea, the saltwater wind. There is a memory here, of the last time he saw Byleth smile. It was a gentle little thing, surfacing as they nodded off to sleep amidst the gardens of Garreg Mach. He had imagined, hadn’t he, that his sweet Professor was sunning like a cat? He had imagined that, and dared to touch, too, reaching out one hand to brush a stray lock of hair from their cheek. There was salt on the breeze even though they were miles and miles from the sea. 

They hadn’t slept long, of course, jolting awake with a soft apology. Dimitri hadn’t minded, of course. The tea hadn’t even gotten cold. He still couldn’t drink it due to the guilt sitting heavy in his stomach, as if the touch he stole was some dirty, heretical thing.

How laughable it seemed now, now that he had stolen everything Byleth had to give, roamed the expanse of their skin with hands far dirtier than those of a foolish and soft-eyed boy.

It would be nice, wouldn’t it? If he didn’t feel the need to devour his Professor’s entire being like some ravenous beast? Wouldn’t it be nice, if only for Byleth’s sake alone...

Dimitri cups the back of Byleth’s head, brings their face closer. He can feel their breath on his neck. He dares to breathe, too, dares to breathe in deeply, but once again all he can catch is the scent of iron and fire.

If Byleth still smelled like the sea.

If Byleth still smelled like the sea, maybe then he could content himself with scent alone.

...Isn’t that a pretty dream?

-e-

Beasts do not make love. They rut against each other when the mating season comes, they howl and claw and bite and it is pathetic, pathetic, _ pathetic _ \- 

His sweet Professor is tight and wet around him, and so, so _ warm _. He wants to sink his teeth into the nape of their neck. He wants to make them bleed and then lick the wound clean and perhaps, perhaps, kiss the mark he leaves - 

Dimitri gasps, and groans, and finishes with a grunt and one final, shaking thrust. Professor dearest quivers above him, and he can feel a moan building around his fingers. Byleth’s mouth is warm and their tongue is soft, but Dimitri is quick to weigh his desires against each other. He withdraws and reaches down, his hand still slick with spit, coaxing out more sounds with each stroke.

_ Do you hear yourself _ , Dimitri wants to ask, and _ has anyone else heard you like this _ , and _ do you not wish for an actual lover, do you not feel debased _, defiled, a thousand other words that all come back to the fact that surely anyone must be better to lay with than Dimitri. But he doesn’t speak. He has never spoken under such circumstances. Any answers Byleth could offer would merely be drowned out by the jeers of his ghosts, he has learned that much by now.

Byleth’s hand comes up and oh, they’re petting his cheek. He shifts, balancing them more carefully in his lap, and lifts his hand from their hip to fold over their fingers.

“Are my hands so calloused,” Byleth says, voice as flat as ever. Dimitri shakes his head and guides their fingers down, so that they can finish this together. 

When Byleth climaxes, it is with a sigh instead of a scream. It makes his bones shift, uneasy, under his skin. He is not meant for such gentleness. He is not meant even to bear witness to such vulnerability, to such an open heart, not without fitting his fingers between the cracks of the ribs and tearing it open like a gruesomely blossoming flower - 

“You’re thinking again,” Byleth says. Dimitri does not reply. He is unworthy, after all, isn’t he? He is unworthy of his professor’s voice, or touch, or praise. 

“So loud,” Dimitri says, and lies down. _ I will avenge you _ , he thinks, as if that will grant him any reprieve. _ This I swear. _

“Yes,” Byleth sighs, and traces a strange, unfamiliar pattern into his chest. Dimitri allows it. Dimitri will allow anything from them. He knows that he will wake up alone and aching, but still he allows this indulgence.

Just in case. Just in case Professor might stay.

-a-

Beasts die.

Men die as well, of course. Heroes even. But at the end of the day, the beast will be slain, and he has never entertained any delusions about where this road might end. It is, after all, paved with skulls - and dreams are for men, not lesser beings. 

He had almost forgotten. How funny.

His father, his uncle, so many others - they all crowd around him. They crowd around him and his world feels impossibly small. His head is spinning and he cannot breathe. Professor. Professor, please tell me to breathe.

Someone is making their way up the hill. 

He cannot feel his left leg.

There is a sigh, a familiar sigh, and suddenly his periphery is full of blue. Only blue. Byleth shoos away his ghosts like rowdy students and bends over him with unreadable eyes. They brush the hair from his forehead, and their fingertips come away bloody.

"Professor," Dimitri croaks. He nearly panics as Byleth withdraws, disappearing from his sight, but they are quick to return, to straddle his broken body and lower their head to his chest. Is dear Professor searching for a heartbeat? How innocent. How childish and innocent. 

Their cloak drapes over him like a comforting blanket or a funeral shroud. It cannot be both. He clings to threads of clarity as his hearing starts to fade. Professor is saying something, a final lesson, a final lesson that he cannot discern. He stares at those lips - soft, if only in his dreams - and his jaw lets out a sickening crunch as he tries to mimic their movements, to puzzle out the words.

_Dimitri_.

Or perhaps it is just that he can recognize no other words. Like the dumb beast he is, he can recognize no other words but his name. 

_ Failed. _

Yes. He has failed his professor. He has failed to obtain any semblance of justice or even its shadow, vengeance. He has failed to remember the simplest of teachings - the first words Byleth ever imparted upon him within the lecture hall, a simple _do not die_. Or perhaps Byleth means it is they who have failed him, failed him in abandoning him for all these long, lonely years, failed him here and now that they must watch someone who was once their student die - but, but Dimitri, oh, he has been dead a long, long time.

_ Again, _ Byleth mouths at him, and presses their fingers to his lips like a consecration. Dimitri gasps against the callouses, one last spate of desperate, roaring breaths.

“What must I do,” Dimitri cries, blood in his lungs. “Professor, only tell me what I must do - what must I do?! - ”

-m-

...to follow you?

**Author's Note:**

> are u confused? so am i. whats going on here? is byleth dead? is dimitri dead? is anyone dead? how much of this is him hallucinating again? when does this even take place, when dimitris on the run or after byleth and dimitri reunite? we just dont know. its very mysterious.
> 
> written as a gift fic, i have not played/watched/etc three houses and only know what i have absorbed thru my twitter tl. hope dimitris not too ooc.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [What We Aren't](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21322309) by [viiaitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/viiaitch/pseuds/viiaitch)


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